At His Gates: A Novel. Vol. 2 (of 3) Page 3

  CHAPTER III.

  The next day after Mrs Burton's carriage had been seen at Helen's door agreat many people called on Mrs Drummond--all 'the nicest people'--somewho had known her or known about her in the old days, some who camebecause she was Mr Burton's cousin, and some who took that means ofshowing their sympathy. The door was besieged; and Susan, half-flatteredby the importance of her position, half-alarmed lest this might be acommencement of the system of putting upon which she dreaded, brought inthe cards, gingerly holding them in a hand which she had wrapped up inher apron, and giving a little sketch of the persons represented. Therewas the doctor's wife, and the major's lady, and Mrs Ashurst from theRow, and 'them London folks,' all of whom were sensible enough to maketheir advances solely in this way. Mrs Dalton was the only personadmitted. Helen was too well brought up, she had too much sense of theproprieties of her position, to shut her door against the clergyman'swife--who brought her husband's card, and explained that he would havecome too but for the fear of intruding too early.

  'But I hope you will let us see you,' the kind woman added. 'We are suchnear neighbours. My eldest little girl is the same age as yours. I thinkwe should understand each other. And I have such a busy life--to be ableto run across and talk things over now and then would be such a comfortto me.'

  'You mean it would be a comfort to me,' said Helen, 'the sight of a kindface.'

  'And Norah will come and see my Mary. They can take their walkstogether, and amuse each other. It is such a pleasure to me,' said MrsDalton, 'to look across at these windows, and think that you are here.'She had said so much with the amiable power of make-believe, not exactlydeception, which an affectionate temper and her position as clergy-womanmade natural to her--when she caught Helen's eye, and nature suddenlyhad the mastery. 'Oh, Mrs Drummond, how I babble! I am so sorry, sosorry!' she said, and her eyes ran over with tears, though Helen didnot weep. It is not easy to repel such a visitor. They grew friends atthat first interview, while Norah stood by and made her observationstoo.

  'May I go and see Mary?' she asked, when Mrs Dalton had gone. 'I think Ishall like her better than Clara Burton. How funny it must be to have somany brothers and sisters, mamma; and I who never had either a brotheror a sister! I should like to have had just one--a little sister withblue eyes. But, then, if you had been very fond of her, fonder than ofme, I should not have liked that. Perhaps, on the whole, a brother wouldhave been the best. A boy is a change--they are useless, and yet theyare nice--for a long walk, for instance. I wish I had had a big brother,older than me--quite old--almost grown up. How funny it would have been!I wonder what we should have called him. If he had been as big as--MrRivers, for instance--that would have been nice for you too.'

  Helen smiled, and let the child run on. It was the music to which herlife was set. Norah's monologue accompanied everything. Sometimes,indeed, an answer was necessary, which interrupted the strain, butgenerally a word, a smile, or a monosyllable was enough. She went onweaving her big brother out of her imagination; it was more delightfulthan speculating about Mary Dalton.

  'I am sure it would have been nice for you too,' she said. 'He wouldhave given you his arm when you were tired, and looked after theluggage, and locked all the doors at nights. The only thing is, it wouldhave been a great expense. When people are poor, I suppose they can'tafford to have boys. They want so many things. But yet he would havebeen nice all the same. I hope he would have had a pretty name; not soshort as Ned, and not so common as Charlie. Charlie is the eldest of theDaltons--such a big boy. Oh, I wonder what our boy's name would havebeen? Do you like Oswald, mamma, or Eustace? Eustace sounds like apriest or something dreadfully wise. I don't like solemn boys. So longas he was big and strong, and not too clever. But oh, dear, dear, whatis the use of talking? We never can have a big boy, I suppose? I must becontent with other girls' brothers. I shall never have one of my veryown.'

  'The less you have to do with other girls' brothers the better, Norah,'said Helen, beguiled into a smile.

  'I do not care for them, I am sure,' said Norah, with dignity; 'though Idon't dislike gentlemen, mamma--quite old gentlemen, like Dr Maurice andMr Haldane, are very nice. And I should like to have had--Mr Rivers, forinstance--for a big brother. I rather think, too, I like Ned Burtonbetter than Clara. It is more natural to hear a boy talk of ponies andthings. She never thinks of anything else--dogs, and horses, andcarriages, and the fine things she has. It is not polite to talk of suchthings to people who have not got them. I told her I did not care forponies, nor grapes, nor hot-house flowers; and that I would rather livein London than at the House. And, oh, so many--stories, mamma! Is itwrong to tell a little fib when you don't mean any harm? Just a littleone, when people boast and make themselves disagreeable--and when youdon't mean any harm?'

  'It is always wrong to tell fibs; and I don't know the differencebetween big ones and little ones,' said Helen.

  'Oh, mamma, but I do! A big story is--for instance. If I were to saySusan had stolen your watch, that would be a wicked lie. But when I sayI don't care for grapes, and would not like to have a pony, it isn'tquite true, but then it makes Clara be quiet, and does nobody any harm.I am sure there is a great difference. It would be very nice to have apony, you know. Only think, mamma, to go cantering away across thecommon and on the turf! But I would not give in to say that I shouldlike to be Clara, or that she was better off than me!'

  Norah's casuistry silenced her mother. She shook her head, but she didnot say anything. Something of the same feeling was, indeed, in her ownmind. She, too, would have liked to be contemptuous of the luxurieswhich her neighbours dangled before her eyes. And Norah resumed hermonologue. The mother only partially heard it, waking up now and then togive the necessary response, but carrying on all the time her ownseparate thread of cogitation, which would not shape itself into words.The old parlour, with its brown-grey curtains and all its spindle-leggedfurniture, enclosed and seemed to watch the human creatures whodisturbed the silence. A room which has been long unoccupied, and whichis too large for its new inhabitants, has often this spectator look. Thepictures looked down from the walls and watched; up in the little roundmirror two people in a miniature interior, who were in realityreflections of the two below, but looked quite different, glanced downupon them, and watched also. The sky looked in through the five windows,and the lime-trees in front kept tapping with their branches against thepanes to show that they were looking on. All the rest were clandestine,but the lime-trees were honest in their scrutiny. And in the midst of itthe mother and daughter led their subdued lives. Norah's voice ranthrough all like a brook or a bird. Helen was mostly silent, sayinglittle. They had a roof to shelter them, enough of daily bread, thekindness of strangers outside, the rude but sympathetic kindness ofSusan within. This was more, a great deal more, than often falls to thelot of human wrecks after a great shipwreck. Norah after a little whileaccepted it as the natural rule of life, and forgot every other; andHelen was silent, though she did not forget. The silence of the house,however, by times oppressed the child. She lay awake in the greatbed-room up-stairs, afraid to go to sleep till her mother should come;and even in the daylight there were moments when Norah was afraid of theghostly drawing-room, and could not but feel that weird aged women, theMiss Pagets, whom her mother had known, or some of the old Harcourts,were watching her from behind the doors, or from the shade of thecurtains. There was a deep china closet beside the fireplace with oneparticular knot in the wood-work which fascinated Norah, and made herfeel that some mysterious eye was gazing at her from within. But allthese fancies dispersed the moment Mrs Drummond appeared. There wasprotection in the soft rustle of her gown, the distant sound of hervoice. And so the routine of life--a new routine, but soon firmlyestablished, supporting them as upon props of use and wont, began again.There were the lessons in the morning, and Norah's music, and a longwalk in the afternoon; and they went to bed early, glad to be done withlife and another day. Or at least Helen was glad to be done with it--notNorah, to whom it
was the opening of the story, and to whom once morethe sunshine began to look as sweet as ever, and each new morning was adelight.

  A few weeks after their arrival the Haldanes followed them. Miss Janehad written beforehand begging for information about the house and thejourney; and it was only then that Helen learned, with a mortificationshe could scarcely overcome, that the Gatehouse was to be their refugetoo. This fact so changed the character of her cousin's kindness toher, that her pride was with difficulty subdued to silence; but she hadsufficient self-control to say nothing--pride itself coming to her aid.

  'Perhaps you would be so good as to send me a line with a fewparticulars,' Miss Jane wrote. 'I should like to know for myself andmother if there is a good minister of our denomination, and if you wouldmention the price of meat, and how much you are giving for the bestbutter, I should be very much obliged. I should like to know if there isa good room on the ground-floor that would do for Stephen, and if wecould have a Bath-chair to bring him down from the station, for I amvery distrustful of cabs. Also about a charwoman, which is veryimportant. I am active myself and always look after the washing, so thatone strong handy woman to come from six in the morning till two would doall I should require.

  Mrs Drummond made an effort and answered all these questions, and evenwalked to the station to see them arrive. It was a mournful sightenough. She stood and looked on with her heart aching, and saw the manwhom she had known so different lifted out of the carriage and put intothe invalid chair. She saw the look of dumb anguish and humiliation inhis eyes which showed how he felt this public exposure of his weakness.He was very patient; he smiled and thanked the people who moved him: yetHelen, with her perceptions quickened by her own suffering, felt theintolerable pain in the other's soul, and went away hurriedly, not toafflict him further by her presence. What had he done? How had this mansinned more than others? All the idlers that lounged about and watchedhim, were they better or dearer to God than he was? Mrs Drummond washalf a Pagan, though she did not know it. She hurried away with amiserable sense that it was past bearing. But Stephen set his lips tightand bore it. He bore the looks of the village people who came out totheir doors to look at him as he passed. As for his mother and sister,they scarcely remarked his silence. They were so happy that everythinghad gone off so well, that he had borne it so easily.

  'I don't think he looks a bit the worse,' said Miss Jane.

  They were the tenderest, the most patient of nurses, but they hadaccepted his illness long ago as a matter of course. From the moment hewas placed in the chair, and so off their mind, as it were, the luggagecame into the ascendant and took his place. They had a wonderful amountof parcels, mostly done up in brown paper. Mrs Haldane herself carriedher pet canary in its cage, tied up in a blue-and-white handkerchief.She was more anxious about this for the moment than about her son. Theprocession was one which caught everybody's eye. First two wheelbarrowswith the luggage, the first of which was occupied by Stephen's bed andchair, the other piled up with boxes, among the rest two portmanteaus ofhis own, on which he could still read, on old labels which he hadpreserved with pride, the names of Naples, Florence, and Rome. Had hebeen actually there, he who was now little more than a piece of luggagehimself? Miss Jane divided her attentions between her brother and thesecond wheelbarrow, on which the brown-paper parcels were tumbling andnodding, ready to fall. His mother walked on the other side, holdingfast by the parcel in the blue-and-white handkerchief. Mrs Burton, whowas passing in her carriage, stopped to look after them. She, too, hadknown Stephen in better days. She did not ask passionate questions asHelen was doing; but she felt the shock in her way, and only comfortedherself by thinking that the feelings get blunted in such unfortunatecases, and that no doubt other people felt more for him than he feltfor himself.

  But notwithstanding the callousness which use had brought, there was noindifference to Stephen's comfort in the minds of his attendants.Everything was arranged for him that evening as if he had beensurrounded by a crowd of servants. When Helen went to see him he wasseated by the window with flowers upon his table and all his papersarranged upon it. The flowers were not very choice; they were of MissJane's selection, and marigolds and plumy variegated grass lookedbeautiful in her eyes. Yet nothing but love could have put everything inits place so soon, and metamorphosed all at once the dining-room of theGatehouse into Stephen's room, where everything bore a reference to himand was arranged for his special comfort. Perhaps they did not alwaysfeel for him, or even see what room there was for feeling. But this theycould do--and in it they never failed.

  'Does not he look comfortable?' Miss Jane said with triumph. 'You wouldthink to see him he had never budged from his chair. And he got throughthe journey very well. If you but knew how frightened I was when we setout!'

  Stephen looked at Mrs Drummond with a smile. There were some linesabout his mouth and a quiver in his upper lip which spoke to her moreclearly than to his sister. Helen had not been in the way of going outof herself to sympathise with others; and it seemed to her as if she hadsuddenly got a new pair of eyes, an additional sense. While they wereall talking she saw what the journey had really cost him in his smile.

  'It is strange to see the world again after so long,' he said, 'and torealise that once one walked about it quite carelessly like otherpeople, without thinking what a thing it was.'

  'But, Stephen, I am sure you don't repine,' said his mother, 'you knowwhose will it is, and you would not have it different? That is such acomfort whatever we may have to suffer.'

  'You would not have it different!'

  Helen looked at him almost with tears in her eyes.

  'That is a great deal to say, mother,' he answered with a suppressedsigh; while she still went on asking herself passionately what had hedone? what had he done?

  'I think the charwoman will suit very well,' said Miss Jane. 'She seemsclean, and that is the great thing. I am very well satisfied witheverything I have seen as yet. The kitchen garden is beautiful. Isuppose as there is no division, we are to have it between us--that andthe fruit? I have been thinking a few fowls would be very nice if youhave no objection. They cost little to keep, and to have your own eggsis a great luxury. And meat seems reasonable. I am very well satisfiedwith all I have seen.'

  'If we only knew about the chapel,' said Mrs Haldane. 'So much of yourcomfort depends on your minister. If he is a nice man he will be companyfor Stephen. That is what I am most afraid of--that he will be dull inthe country. There was always some one coming in about the magazine orsome society or other when we were in town. I am afraid, Stephen, youwill feel quite lost here.'

  'Not for want of the visitors, mother,' he said; 'especially if MrsDrummond will spare me Norah. She is better than any minister--notmeaning any slight to my brethren,' he added, in a half-apologetic,half-laughing tone. He could laugh still, which was a thing Helen foundit very difficult to understand.

  'Norah is very nice, and I like dearly to see her,' said his mother;'but, Stephen, I don't like to hear you talk like that. Mrs Drummond isnot to know that it is all your nonsense. You were always such a one fora joke.'

  'My jokes have not been very brilliant lately,' he said, with a smile.Mrs Haldane rose at that moment to help her daughter with something shewas moving to the other end of the room, and Stephen, seizing theopportunity, turned quickly round upon Helen, who was sitting by him.'You are very sorry for me,' he said, with a mixture of gratitude andimpatience. 'Don't! it is better not!'

  'How can I help it?' cried Helen. 'And why is it better not?'

  'Because I cannot bear it,' he said, almost sternly.

  This passed in a moment, while the unconscious women at the other endhad altered the position of a table. Never man had more tender nursesthan these two; but they had ceased to be sorry for him in look or word.They had accepted their own fate and his; his helplessness was to themlike the daylight or the dark, a thing inevitable, the course of nature;and the matter-of-fact way in which they had learned to treat it madehis life su
pportable. But it was difficult for a stranger to realisesuch a fact.

  'I never told you that we were disappointed about letting the house,'said Miss Jane. 'A great many people came, but no one who wassatisfactory. It is a great loss. I have left a person in it to try fora few months longer. People are very unprincipled, coming out of merecuriosity, and turning over your blankets and counterpanes without athought.'

  Here the conversation came to a pause, and Helen rose. She was standingsaying her farewells and making such offers of assistance as she could,when the daily event with which she had grown familiar took place.

  'There is some one coming,' said Stephen, from the window. 'It ought tobe the queen by the commotion it makes: but it is only Burton.'

  And Mrs Haldane and Miss Jane both rushed forward to see. Helen withdrewout of sight with a secret bitterness which she could not have put intowords. Mr Burton was driving home from the station in all his usualimportance. His horses were groomed to perfection, the mountings of hisharness sparkled in the sun. He half drew up as he passed, making hisbays prance and express their disapprobation, while he took off his hatto the new arrivals. It was such a salutation as a jocund monarch mighthave tossed at a humble worshipper, mock ceremony and consciouscondescension. The women looking out never thought of that. They ranfrom one window to another to watch him entering the avenue, they talkedto each other of his fine horses, the neat groom beside him, and howpolite he was. Stephen had been looking on, too, with keen interest. Asmile was on his face, but the lines above his eyes were contracted, andthe eyes themselves gleamed with a sudden fire which startled Helen.

  'I wonder what he thinks of it all,' he said to her under his breath,'if he thinks at all. I wonder if he is comfortable when he reflects whoare living at his gates?'

  The words were said so low that she had to stoop to hear; and with awondering thrill of half-comprehension she looked at him. What did hemean? From whence came that tone which was almost fierce in itsself-restraint? It seemed to kindle a smouldering fire in her, of thenature of which she was not quite aware. 'Burton and Golden' suddenlyflashed across her thoughts again. Where was it she had seen the nameslinked together? What did it mean? and what did Stephen mean? She feltas if she had almost found out something, which quickened her pulse andmade her heart beat--almost. But the last point of enlightenment was yetto come.

  'Now he has turned in at the gate,' said Miss Jane. 'Well, for my part,I am glad to have seen him; and to think that a man could do all that byhis own exertions! If he had been a nobleman I should not have thoughthalf so much of it. I suppose, now, that could not be seen anywhere butin England? You may smile, Stephen, and think me very vulgar-minded; butI do think it is a very wonderful sight.'

  And thus the second household settled down, and became a part of thelandscape which the family at Dura surveyed with complaisantproprietorship, and through which Mr Burton drove every afternoon,calling admiring spectators to all the windows. The rich man had neverenjoyed the commotion he made so much as he did now when he could see atthe Gatehouse those faces looking out. There was scarcely an evening butMiss Jane or her mother would stand up to see him, gazing withunconscious worship at this representative of wealth and strength, andthat practical power which sways the world; while Norah would clamber upon a chair behind the blinds at the other end, and look out with her bigbrown eyes full of serious observation. He thought Norah wondered andworshipped too, not being able to understand the language of her eyes.And sometimes he would see, or think he saw, her mother behind her. Whenhe did so he went home in high good-humour, and was more jocular thanusual; for nothing gave him such a sense of his own greatness, hisprosperity, and superiority to common flesh and blood, as the homage, orsupposed homage, paid to him by those lookers-on at the windows of theGatehouse.

  Mr Burton's satisfaction came to a climax when his father-in-law came topay his next visit, which happened not very long after the arrival ofthe Haldanes. Mr Baldwin, as we have said, was a Dissenter, andsomething like a lay bishop in his denomination. He was very rich, andlived very plainly at Clapham with his two sisters, Mrs Everett and MissLouisa. They were all very good people in their way. There was not a manin England who subscribed to more societies or presided at a greaternumber of meetings. He spent half his income in this way; he 'promoted'charities as his son-in-law promoted joint-stock companies; and pridedhimself on the simplicity of his living and his tastes, notwithstandinghis wealth. When he and his sisters came to pay a visit at Dura theywalked from the station, leaving their servants and their boxes tofollow in a fly. 'We have the use of our limbs, I am thankful toProvidence,' one of the sisters would say; 'why should we have acarriage for a little bit of road like that?' They walked in a littleprocession, the gentleman in advance, like a triumphant cock in front ofhis harem, the two ladies a little behind. Mr Baldwin wore his hat onthe back of his head, and a white tie, like one of his favouriteministers; he had a round, chubby face, without any whiskers, and acomplexion almost as clear as little Clara's. The two ladies were likehim, except that Mrs Everett, who was a widow, was large and stout, andMiss Louisa pale and thin. They walked along with a natural feeling ofbenevolent supremacy, making their remarks on everybody and everythingwith distinct voices. When they got to the Gatehouse they paused andinspected it, though the windows were all open.

  'I think Reginald was wrong to give such a house as this to those poorpeople,' said the married sister in front of the door. 'It is a handsomehouse. He might have found some little cottage for them, and let this toa family.'

  'But, Martha, he gave what he had, and it is that that is alwaysaccepted,' said Miss Louisa.

  The brother drowned her plaintive little voice with a more decidedreply--

  'I am very glad Haldane has such good quarters. As for the lady, Isuppose she was not to blame; but when a man flies in the face ofProvidence I would not reward him by providing for his wife and family.I agree with Martha. It is a waste of the gifts of God to give thishouse to poor people who cannot enjoy it; but still Burton is right onthe whole. If you cannot do better with your property, why should notyou use it to make friends of the mammon of unrighteousness? I approveof his charity on the whole.'

  Inside the recipients of the charity sat and heard all through the openwindows. But what then? Mr Baldwin and his sisters were not responsiblefor that. They went on to the avenue making the same candid and audibleremarks all along the road. It was not necessary that they shouldexercise self-restraint. They were in the dominions of their relation.They were absolute over all foolish sentiment and false pride. They saidit loud out, frankly, whatever they might have to say. The arrival ofthese visitors always made a certain commotion at Dura. It moved MrBurton a great deal more than it did his wife. Indeed, if there wasanything which vexed him in her exemplary behaviour, it was that shewould not make temporarily the changes which he thought were 'onlyrespectful' to suit the tastes of her father and aunts. 'You know yourfather likes only plain roast and boiled,' he would say to her,half-indignantly, adding, with a laugh, 'and minister sauce.' This lastwas one of his favourite jokes, though it did not strike his wife asparticularly brilliant. But the minister sauce was the only thing whichMrs Burton provided for her father. She held fast by her _menu_, thoughhe disapproved of it. She dressed herself tranquilly for dinner, thoughher aunts held up their hands, and asked her solemnly if she knew whatall this extravagance must come to? In these matters Clara would notgive way; but she asked the minister of the chapel in the village todinner, and it was in the presence of this functionary that Mr Baldwinfilled up the measure of his son-in-law's content.

  'I see you have been very generous to poor Haldane,' he said. 'I am verymuch obliged to you, Burton. He is my own man; I should have beencompelled to do something for him if you had not taken him up; and myhands are always so full! You will find I do not forget it. But it wasa great waste to put him into such a handsome house.'

  'I am delighted to have pleased you,' said Mr Burton. 'It was an emptyhouse; and I ha
ve put my cousin, Mrs Drummond, in the other end, whom Iwas obliged to take care of. It was the cheapest way of doing it. I ammost happy to think I have relieved you, even of so little as that.'

  'Oh yes, you have relieved me,' said Mr Baldwin. 'I sha'n't forget it.It will be an encouragement to Mr Truston and to many of the brethren tosee that a sick friend is never abandoned. I don't mean to say that youwant any inducement--but, still, when you can see that even in the caseof failing strength----'

  'Oh yes. I am sure it is most encouraging,' the poor minister faltered.

  Encouraging to think of Stephen Haldane, who was thus provided for! Thetwo rich men went on with their talk over their wine, while someconfused speculation as to the ways of Providence went through the headof their companion. He was young, and he felt ill at ease, and he didnot like to interfere much. Had it been Mr Dalton he would have beenless easily silenced. Thus Mr Burton found his benevolence in oneparticular at least attended with the most perfect success.